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Talk:Gaëtan Dugas
This is another example of HT's strange selectiveness, finding a historical flight attendant to write about, while ignoring countless historical presidents and congressmen who could make interesting characters. Also, about the life dates, does Canada use day-month or month-day?JonathanMarkoff (talk) 22:39, November 20, 2015 (UTC) ::It's not like he could have used Gerald Ford for the same purpose. Turtle Fan (talk) 05:18, November 21, 2015 (UTC) :It makes sense given the nature of the story. Dugas was supposed to be "patient zero" for AIDS in the US and Canada, i.e. the first instance of the disease in North America (excluding the Caribbean). Given that, the individual would almost certainly be an obscure figure otherwise. Who was patient zero in the recent Ebola outbreak in the US? ::It's worth pointing out that the "Dugas as patient zero" hypothesis was largely discarded, which is probably why HT didn't ID him directly for a story written in 2004. As for HT's selectiveness--Gaetan is by no means the point of the story. Lingol is. Gaetan is just a plot device, really. TR (talk) 02:40, November 21, 2015 (UTC) :For dates, both US and European formats are used although the Federal Government is trying to standardize on YYYY-MM-DD. I personally use DD/MM/YY on notes with the month written out and the full year on more formal documents like these articles. The four tildes do whatever they do here. ML4E (talk) 23:00, November 20, 2015 (UTC) Lit. Comm. Is that really needed? The "(probably for legal reasons)" comment makes no sense since Dugas would have been dead 20 years when the story was first published. ML4E (talk) 21:42, September 1, 2016 (UTC) :Much worse things have been said about Dugas than "He inadvertently caused the extinction of elves in a parallel universe in a work of fiction". So I agree, legal reasons weren't likely, and that clause is unnecessary. I don't object to explaining why we think that it's Dugas. We've done that elsewhere, and given our desire to be "professional", I think it's probably a good policy to follow. So I would remove the parenthetical, and leave the meat of the lit comm. TR (talk) 21:50, September 1, 2016 (UTC) :Eh, I'm going to walk that back ever so slightly. I forgot he was Canadian, so legal reasons could be at issue; I'm not familiar enough with the libel and slander laws and personality rights of Canada, and since HT probably knew the collection would have been published in Canada, heT might have decided to avoid a headache that he would almost certainly not have had to deal with in the US. However, it's really not worth speculating on, and I stand by recommendation. TR (talk) 21:57, September 1, 2016 (UTC) ::Same. Turtle Fan (talk) 22:06, September 1, 2016 (UTC) ::Well I'm not an expert on Canadian libel law either but the maxim that "you can't libel a dead man" holds. I see Jonathan has removed the stuff in the brackets so its moot. I do agree with at course of action. ML4E (talk) 19:53, September 2, 2016 (UTC)